The Trump era has deranged writers. 

Constant chatter of nebulous vibe shifts and woke/anti-woke battles has made it nearly impossible to find rational voices in the cacophonous take economy. It’s dispiriting to watch a once respected and sane commentator devolve into an annoying and perpetually aggrieved social media screecher. But that seems to be the default position of most writers these days, no matter the political orientation. Too many sensible writers to name have been driven mad in the past decade, ushering in the insufferable cultural era we find ourselves in.

Like many people, I’m tired of the screaming and the histrionics, which is why Meghan Daum’s latest essay collection, The Catastrophe Hour, was such a pleasure to read. Daum, an acclaimed essayist and cultural critic who’s been around since the 1990s and witnessed countless cultural cycles, is too wise to fall into the traps many of her contemporaries willingly step into. Daum lays it out plainly in the introduction to the collection, which contains essays written between 2017 and 2024: “They were inspired not by news headlines or social media dustups but by the free-floating anxiety that underscores and perpetuates all of that. They are my attempt to grab some emotional abstractions out of thin air and examine them until they can start to make sense. They’re about the pleasures of staring out the window or even staring........

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